Four years after the Legislature eliminated the last vestiges of the Rockefeller Drug Laws and opted for a less punitive and more rehabilitative approach to addiction, the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor reports a steady decrease in the percentage of defendants ending up in treatment.
Bridget Brennan, New York's special narcotics district attorney with citywide jurisdiction, said the decline in treatment diversions reflects what may be an unintended consequence of the drug law reform movement: In reducing prison sentences, the Legislature perhaps inadvertently reduced the incentive to go into treatment and in large measure hindered the prosecution's sway to encourage offenders to go into and stick with what can be a rigorous and painful rehabilitation.
